Stereotypes

I had a fantastic weekend, and there are pictures, so I'll write about that after I download them to my laptop. For now I want to talk about stereotypes.

Several classes have asked me what Americans think of Germans. Generally, I tell them that most Americans think of Bavaria because most Americans who have been to Germany were in the Army and all of our military bases are in the south. I generally also tell them that when Americans think of non-Bavarian Germany, they think of people who are on time, follow rules, and make high-quality goods.

After being here for 3 weeks, my stereotype of Germans is someone walking up to you, shaking your hand, and saying "Ach so!" in the first 10 seconds of conversation. This person might also offer you coffee multiple times. I bet the flu has a field day here because everyone shakes your hand every time they see you. The Schulleiter (principal) at my school comes into the teacher's room in the morning for the express purpose of shaking everyone's hand.

If you're walking in the street here, I hope you love the smell of cigarette smoke. So many people smoke here - it's surprising to me! And it's not just older people; I see kids smoking at a bench that I assume is the school boundary when I get to school during a break time. The worst thing is when I'm waiting for the tram and I don't realize that someone near me is smoking until I'm covered with ash (I tend to be pretty oblivious while waiting for the tram). People can't smoke inside here, but unlike in the US that didn't stop them; they all just go outside to smoke.

And while we're speaking of stereotypes, today I was going around listening to students do an exercise from their textbook when I noticed that they were looking at a pie chart about the ethnic groups in Australia (9th grade English is all about Australia at ASG). The white section of the pie was a generic tan color. The Aborigine section was a reddish brown, which was bad enough, but the Asian section was bright yellow. Hello, stereotypes!! (There was an other section that was green...I guess aliens live in Australia?)

I had dinner with one of my classes yesterday. I didn't quite understand why the entire class and the teacher went out for Italian food on a Sunday, but it was nice. I can mostly understand the kids' German, especially when they use Denglisch. My favorite two things I heard were "YOLO!" and "Wir koennen ein Selfie machen." The German language, so old, so beautiful, reduced to "Selfie machen." At least I can understand their slang when it's English.

Tschuessi!